26
THE PALACE WE PULL UP TO TAKES UP MOST OF THE BLOCK. IT’S ORNATE AND sprawling, but has a boutique feel.
“Which hotel is this?” I say, looking for a sign.
“It’s not a hotel,” Parker says. “It’s my house.”
The men outside aren’t porters. They’re guards.
“Oh.”
The home has arched windows, intricately designed iron balconies, and a pale blue roof. There’s a gate, then a courtyard, then steps to the front door.
Inside, we’re met by a stunning curved marble staircase with the same iron banister. The ceiling is high, the finishes are gold, the floor is a mosaic of stone.
I turn to Parker. He’s watching me.
“Do you like it?” he says.
I love it, but for some reason, I say nothing. I just keep walking through, until I see the first hearth. The room is adorned with elaborate finishes, as if originally crafted in another era, but the furniture is soft, slightly modern. There are round white pillows on the couches that look like giant pearls.
He silently shows me around. The kitchen is modern too and reminds me of the one in his New York apartment. The stairs curve, nestled against a stone wall with a towering arched stained-glass window. Every room is painted a slightly different pastel color. Every bathroom is made entirely of marble, matching that color. Light blue. Light pink. Light purple. The closets are painted a dark variation of the shade.
There are endless terraces, and outside, stretching far and wide, there is a garden. It’s overgrown in an intentional way, with pastel flowers and rosebushes.
“I can’t believe this is yours. It’s so beautiful.”
“It was going to be demolished, it wasn’t in great shape. My mom always loved Paris and dreamed of being an interior designer, so I bought it, and she designed every room. We made sure the renovations salvaged anything historical.”
I turn to face him. “You mean, the mother who bought you the vase?”
“Yes, I just have the one.”
He must see the surprise I am trying very hard to mask, because he says, “My mom knows the vases are ugly, Elle. That’s the point. She thinks it’s important to gift me items that lived in our house when I was growing up. So I don’t forget where I came from.”
He leads me to a clock that looks completely out of place in the house. It has chipped red paint, and I’m pretty sure a rooster comes out of it.
“We got that at a yard sale when I was twelve,” he says. “It’s how we got most of our stuff. Either that or thrift stores.”
“Does she . . . live here?” I ask, wondering if I should dart into the closest bathroom and try to make myself look presentable.
“No. Not right now anyway. She runs my foundation. It’s based in Pennsylvania, out of my hometown.”
I blink at him. “You have a foundation?”
He nods. “It holds a large percentage of my company shares.”
That certainly never came up in my internet sleuthing of him. He must keep it private. “You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
He takes me to the library.
It’s like something out of a fairy tale. Books stretch to the ceiling. There are sliding ladders. Comfortable chairs fill the corners of the room. There’s a desk in the center of it.
I think, for a moment, that this would be the perfect place to finish my screenplay.
“I don’t think I’ve ever liked a place so much,” I say quietly. Gently, so gently, he takes my hand.
“Me too,” he says. “But as much as I love this house . . . Paris is outside of it.”
I change into a summer dress and shoes comfortable to walk in for hours. The only way I’ve ever experienced Paris is through movies, and even romanticized, even overly used, the reality is even better than on screen.
The buildings are beautiful, with their blue roofs and simple exteriors. Cafés are everywhere, with round tables, chairs huddled together in pairs, and scalloped umbrellas.
We sit at one called Carette, and I order the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had in my life. It comes with a separate bowl of whipped cream, and I say, “You have to try this,” before handing Parker a spoonful. When some cream remains on his lip, I instinctively brush it away with my thumb. It’s a simple touch. I don’t expect to feel the jolt down my arm; I don’t expect his eyes to darken.
I lower my hand, feeling like my skin has caught aflame under the summer sun.
It’s still morning, so we order croissants, cappuccinos, and omelets. We sit side by side, watching people walk by, and I say, “I like this.”
“What?”
I shrug. “All of it. Eating outside on a busy street. Drinking hot chocolate without feeling like a child. Sitting on one side of the table instead of across from each other.”
At that, Parker curls his arm around me. His fingers make shapes against my side.
We walk down streets lined with bakeries, pharmacies, cheese shops, and clothing stores.
I freeze when I see the Eiffel Tower, poking out between buildings, suddenly completely visible at the end of the street, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Parker has to pull me back onto the curb to avoid oncoming traffic.
“Now I know why everyone loves it,” I say. There are no skyscrapers here to block it, like the new builds that always ruin views of the Empire State Building in New York. No, it’s everywhere, and it’s like a game, walking around and trying to find it from various vantage points.
I’m impatient to see it up close, and not just for my screenplay. “Should we go now?”
“We’ll go tonight,” Parker says.
We walk to rue Cler, a street full of markets selling fruits, flowers, chocolate, bread, and cheese. We walk in and out of stores, trying different bites, telling each other “You need to try this” every few seconds. We go to Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore with a line outside and where photography isn’t allowed. We get crepes on the street and eat them while we walk around Notre Dame.
“Are we close to the Luxembourg Garden?” I ask. We are.
Green stretches out across the city, framed in colorful flowers, statues, and chairs. People read. Children laugh as they race boats in a fountain.
We go to the Musée Rodin. “This looks like your house,” I say as we walk toward it, because it does.
Parker’s house is not, decidedly, filled with busts of men long dead. We pass a wall of drawings. There are some pieces in this museum from other artists, but some of these are attributed to Rodin himself. “I didn’t know Rodin made drawings,” I say, mostly knowing him from his sculpture.
“I guess people really only get one thing to be remembered by,” Parker says.
I turn to him. “What do you want to be remembered by? Your company?”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says thoughtfully. “I hope, one day, my company is the least interesting thing about me.”
We go outside to the garden. That’s where The Thinker lives.
“This is me before every single decision in my life,” I say, nodding up at the statue. “I overthink everything.” I frown. “Only, usually, I’m inside.”
“I don’t know, Elle,” Parker says. “You’ve been pretty spontaneous this summer.” He motions around. “And we’ve spent a lot of it outside.”
He’s right.
A man walks by. My soul almost leaves my body when Parker asks, in perfect French, if he wouldn’t mind taking a photo of us. He happily says yes and snaps it. I think I might keel over.
I’m staring at Parker, waiting for him to look at me, so I can remind him of his hatred of all things photograph. Instead, he gently flicks my nose and moves on.
We’ve walked all day. By the time we get back to Parker’s house, I’m exhausted. Intending to just close my eyes for a minute, I wake up hours later in total darkness.
Barefoot, I walk into the hallway. It’s so quiet. I find Parker in the library. He’s staring at the wall, deep in thought, leaning forward.
“Shouldn’t you be out in the garden?” I joke.
He looks up at me. Smiles. He rises to his feet the way gentlemen do in Jane Austen adaptations whenever a woman walks into the room.
“What time is it? Did I miss the Eiffel Tower?”
“No. I was just going to knock on your door.”
He tells me we’re going to dinner. I know there are a few restaurants in the Eiffel Tower, but I don’t get my hopes up, because I’ve heard those need to be booked months in advance. We just decided to come to Paris. Even if Parker tried, it’s not like they can pull another table out of thin air.
The streets are quieter than usual. I didn’t even check my phone before leaving. “What time is it?” I ask.
“Almost midnight.”
Midnight? The jet lag must be getting to me, because I only just started getting hungry. I know Europeans eat late, but I wonder if any of the restaurants are even open.
When we approach the Eiffel Tower, it’s blocked off.
I frown. “It’s closed.”
“Yes,” he says. “It is.”
Someone comes out to meet us. “This way, Mr. Warren,” he says. Was he able to get the restaurant to stay open late?
Parker watches me try to figure it out with faint amusement.
We’re the only ones in the elevator. Parker grips my shoulder as we quickly move up one of the tower’s legs, up to the sky.
It opens to a restaurant.
It too is empty, save for a single table in the center. Paris is spread all around us, lights everywhere.
I turn to Parker. “You did not rent out the Eiffel Tower.” He says nothing. “Say you didn’t rent out the Eiffel Tower.”
“I can’t.”
Is that even possible? It’s in shock that I move toward the window, marveling at the view. It’s unparalleled. Midnight Paris is all below us, spread out like a feast.
Parker pulls my chair out for me. He takes a seat on the other side. A woman comes over and begins pouring wine.
“You said you would stop with the over-the-top stuff,” I say, still not sure if any of this is real.
He lifts a shoulder. “This, I did for me.”
We have a six-course Michelin-starred meal. Every bite is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, until the next one. By the end, I’m pleasantly full.
When we’re done, I think it’s time to go, but we’re directed to another elevator. “Where are we going?” I don’t know why he would willingly get in another one if he didn’t have to.
“You’ll see,” Parker says.
We travel farther up, through the lattice, Paris getting tinier and tinier beneath us. We keep going, then take a flight of stairs, until we’re at the very top of the Eiffel Tower.
And we have it all to ourselves.
Wind blows my hair back. I marvel at the sleeping city below. I turn to Parker. “I thought you were afraid of heights.”
He’s not looking at the city. He’s not looking at the tower. He’s looking at me.
“When I’m with you, I’m not scared of anything,” he says.
I am, I want to tell him. This scares me. It feels like we’ve been careening toward something all summer. And now—
“Tomorrow’s the last day of summer,” I say, as he joins me at the edge. He’s tense, but his hand is soft against my spine. My voice is barely a whisper as I turn to face him. “It’s a shame, that summers always end.”
“Maybe this one can be endless,” Parker says.
“Nothing in life is endless.”
“Love is, Elle,” he says.
I laugh. “And what do you know about love?”
“Now?” he says. “Everything.”
This, I think. This warmth in my chest, filling every missing piece I didn’t know I had, is what summer feels like.
I’m kissing him. My body melts against him, as if in relief, as if saying, Yes, this is exactly where we’re supposed to be.
I break away, and he looks devastated, before I say, “How quickly can we get back to your house?”
The moment we’re through his front doors, I throw my purse down, kick off my heels, and he lifts me into the air. My ankles lock behind his back, and I’m kissing him as he takes us upstairs, not missing a single step.
Before I know it, my back is against the softest sheets I’ve ever felt in my life, and I’m shrugging out of my dress. He pulls it off me in a flash, and I’m suddenly cold, only in the lingerie I thank myself for bringing with me.
I move to take the rest off, when his hand gently covers both of mine. It pins my wrists above me.
“Let me—let me look at you,” he says with a tenderness completely at odds with the pure need in his eyes. He studies every inch of me. “Perfect,” he says, so softly I don’t think he even knows he said it aloud. “Always so perfect.”
I sit up and start unbuttoning his shirt. My hands are shaking, not with nerves, but in anticipation, and he helps me. My fingers move to his pants. He stops me again with a gentle hand.
“Are you sure?” he says.
“Yes,” I say, and then his clothes are off, and I’ve suddenly lost the ability to breathe. He’s big. I knew that, but—
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I say, swallowing. “But there might be such a thing as too many inches.”
He smiles slowly, a bit of that ego coming through. “You won’t be saying that in a few seconds.” He winks.
Then his hands lock around my ankles, and he’s dragging me to the edge of the bed. He’s taking my underwear off in one fluid motion. He’s kneeling before me.
I sit up, eyes wide, and he looks up at me. The sight of him, between my legs, need clear on his face—
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I nod.
“Good. Now lie back for me, sweetheart,” he says, breath hot against my inner thighs. I do. He hooks one leg over his shoulder. Then the other. At the first press of his tongue against my center, my back arches off the bed.
I curse at the ceiling, bucking as he devours me like he can’t taste enough. At first, the strokes of his tongue are long, slow, taking his time, but then he makes a deep sound of pure want and pulls my hips to his mouth, greedy for even more, and my hands fist his sheets as he licks me like he’s starving, like he’s been waiting months to do this.
I can’t form coherent words or thoughts, just cries that sound like they couldn’t possibly have come from me, and when he slips two fingers inside of me, I collapse, clenching around him, riding his tongue as I chase this pleasure, until I melt back onto the bed.
I lift up onto my arms, wrung out, body boneless, only to see Parker rise to his feet, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Come here,” I say, and he does, slowly. His mouth traces the inside of my thigh, my hip bone, up my ribs, until he reaches my chest, peaked through the lace. The bra is gone in an instant and is replaced with his hands. His thumbs drag over my nipples, pulling, pinching, and I clench around nothing. I need him. I need everything.
A condom is unrolled, and I’m glad Parker is prepared. As he puts it on, I’m still trying to figure out how this is going to work.
His arms bracket around my head, holding himself up. He reaches down between us. “You’re sure?”
I nod.
He begins to push in, and I gasp at the sheer size of him. He stops immediately. Waits for me to nod again.
Slowly, he inches in, and in, and in, stretching, then filling, and at first there’s a flash of pain, but then it’s replaced by a searing pleasure, and he’s dragging through me, against a place that makes me gasp, and I dig my nails into his shoulders to keep from screaming.
Finally, he bottoms out, and we groan together. I’m so full of him, so full of want, and need, and this relentless ache.
Then, eyes locked, he begins to move.
I’m panting in his face. One hand smooths down my side, gripping my waist, and when he drags against that place inside me again, my head tilts back and I cry out, the pleasure so sharp, so saturated. He presses his forehead to mine. He goes harder and faster, and we’re looking at each other the way we have dozens of times before, the wordless language we’ve developed in the last few weeks, like This is better than I thought it would be, like I think I could do this for my entire life.
He says my name as he slams in one final time, his eyes widening as he finishes, and I gasp as I come again around him.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE DOING THIS,” I GASP.
“I can’t believe it took this long.”
He has me against the wall. I’m sliding against the marble. My nipples are dragging against his chest as I move furiously, desperate for every inch of him. He’s gripping my hips and moving me on him, helping me ride him.
It’s been like this for hours. Finally, after we’re done with the wall, I pull on one of his shirts and find a pair of my sweatpants, and we make it downstairs, to get some water. I’m sitting on the kitchen counter, overheated and oversatiated, when he stalks toward me.
My chest is peaked against his shirt again. He takes my hair in a gentle fist, then moves it behind my head. “You drove me out of my mind that night, when you were locked out,” he says. “I was so hard, I couldn’t sleep.” I swallow, and he ducks to trace his lips down my throat. “This is what I wanted to do that night,” he says against my collarbones.
My nipples are tight beneath him. Eyes still on mine, he leans down and takes one between his teeth. I gasp, and he licks across the hurt, sucking my chest right through the fabric, making a mess of me. His hand comes up to pinch the other one.
My legs widen, needy, and his hand slips beneath the waist of the sweatpants. He growls at my need. “Always so ready for me,” he says.
It’s true.
I can’t take it anymore. “Let’s go back,” I say, and he helps me off the counter. I rush out of the kitchen. He’s right behind me.
We don’t even make it to the bedroom.
On the stairs, Parker pulls my sweatpants down and takes me against the steps. My shirt has been discarded somewhere. My knees drag against the cold marble; his hand reaches around to play with my center.
My cries echo through the tower of the stairway as I shatter, but he keeps going, pulling me up against him, rolling my nipples between his fingers.
“You can go again,” he growls into my ear, and I can, I can. I ride him like this, pushing back toward him, deliciously stretched, and he pinches my center.
I come again, my body flush against his so he feels every tremor. He pumps one final time, then finds his release, before sighing against my neck.
“We don’t ever have to leave,” he says. “We can stay right here.”
And I wish, truly, that this night could be endless.